Nathan Wong Link
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About Nathan
Link's research focus on issues in corrections and sentencing, including financial sanctions and debt, prisoner reentry and desistance from crime, mental/physical health, and crime/recidivism control strategies. Link and his coauthors in a recent paper, developed the concept of health-based desistance, arguing that mental and physical health states have important implications for life-course criminology. Link's overarching themes in writings include building knowledge that can improve both public policy and the lives of those in contact with the justice system. Link serves as an investigator or consultant on a range of funded research projects.
Contributions
Why We Need to Address Criminal Legal Fees
In the News
Publications
Shows that reintegration barriers after release from prison are associated with increased mental and physical health problems.
Introduces a financially-focused model of debt collection in community corrections. We describe the characteristics of the people subjected to the model and assess this approach's potential advantages and disadvantages.
Shows that both mental and physical health states have critical implications for recidivism, employment, family conflict, and reincarceration among a sample of men recently released from prison.
Reviews the issues of collateral and legal consequences at the intersection of financial sanctions and community correctional supervision. We conclude with some promising avenues to ameliorate the harms brought about by these financial sanctions.
Assesses the debt obligations faced by a sample of formerly incarcerated men. Findings show that supervision fees are common and that debt burdens linger after release from prison.
Discusses that among a sample of formerly incarcerated men that debt burdens are likely to result among those released under community supervision (i.e., probation/parole) and that people who owe these debts are less likely to be released from supervision eight months later.